Rhetoric & Responsibility
Plus, dreamscape photographs and a neat trick with porcini
First, an update from Lampedusa. Last week I reported on the wretched conditions thousands of refugees are facing in the island’s overcrowded, under-resourced reception centres, and the struggle of local services to manage the situation. Well, this week, the crisis, and the political conversation around it, have continued to intensify. 11.000 people have arrived on the island in less than a week, taking the total numbers this year to 128,000 (more than double 2022). On Monday, faced with this dire situation, Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, headed to Lampedusa together with Georgia Meloni, to outline a 10 point coordinated action plan. The proposals themselves are severe: the EU will increase air surveillance and introduce a new naval mission in the Central Mediterranean. They will also ramp up communications campaigns, to disincentivise those departing, while clamping down on the sale and operation of unseaworthy vehicles. The Italian government, meanwhile, has just announced new targets to double deportation rates while increasing detention times. Human rights groups are understandably concerned that these combined measures could pave the way for even more barbaric measures in future, which, based on this bleak analysis by POLITICO seems sadly probable at this point. If you read just one piece on the topic, however, I’d suggest this Guardian feature by Angela Giuffrida which does an unusually good job of balancing political and economic considerations with recognisable human concerns. As she eloquently reminds us: “Residents [of Lampedusa] empathise with the arrivals – they have rallied to provide clothing and food, with restaurants offering meals and one elderly woman cooking for people in her home. But they feel that their own problems, including bad roads, poor waste management and a hospital bereft of a maternity unit, are being ignored as they are left to deal with a phenomenon that is showing no sign of subsiding.”
Summer 2023 was - once again - characterised by a worrying proliferation of both wild and man made fires. Nowhere was this more evident than in Sicily where in July hundreds of blazes broke out across all of the island’s provinces; scorching farmland, villages and even the urban suburbs of Palermo and Catania. Last week, on 15 September, a new citizen-led group called Basta Incendi took to the streets demanding greater prevention measures and more transparent political responsibility on the part of the President of the Region, Renato Schifani, and the Minister of the Civil Protection Service, Sebastiano "Nello" Musumeci. The movement’s criticisms are strongly worded. According to the protagonists, Schifani and Musumeci are guilty of putting their “personal and political interest” ahead of meaningful action, thereby “aiding the destruction of the social fabric and the natural ecosystem.” Yet Basta Incendi is about more than just rhetoric. Several of the organisers are trained laywers, and their manifesto is a highly sophisticated document which calls for precise measures to be implemented at local, regional and state level. In the coming weeks the movement will seek to expand its popular influence in the streets, but in the meantime - if you read Italian - you may be interested in their concrete solutions which are outlined here.
Back in 2022 the photographer Stefano de Luigi set out on a journey of over 2,000 kilometres back and forth across Italy to answer a question that had been nagging him for years: what would the ‘Grand Tour’ protagonists make of Italy if they were able to travel the country today? Inspired by 17th and 18th Century North European landscape painters such as Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem and Johann Tischbein, de Luigi was possessed by a desire to (re)present contemporary Italy in its most capital-R Romantic form - drawing the viewer’s eye to classical monuments and chiaroscuro alleyways but also to garbage cans, desolate villages and decrepit industrial silos. The result of that work - Il Bel Paese - is an astonishing, surreal, oneiric snapshot of Italy; characterised, among other things, by stark black and white backdrops, flashes of white light, jungle-like vegetation and brooding architectural relics. If you happen to be passing through Genoa you can check out the photographs at the Palazzo Ducale until 15 October. Otherwise, pick up the book here.
Arts and culture: sub-strata
Scrolling through the e-flux newsletter the other day I noticed a fascinating-sounding (if rather niche) publication that I just knew I had to share here. Vincenzo de Bellis and Alessandro Rabottini seem to achieved what many other scholars have long tried and failed to do. They’ve mapped the chaotic landscape of the Italian contemporary art world in something approaching a systematic manner. As the title suggests, their new book Strata: Italian Art since 2000—The Words of the Artists is comprised of a series of conversations between the authors and some of the key protagonists of the national cultural scene over the past three decades. The conversations explore “pivotal moments in each artist’s career”, blending “formal, conceptual, and political concerns with biographical anecdotes”. The collection is an attempt to “canonise the present”, to give intellectual and critical weight to artists and works that, together, reflect the “polyphonic” reality of Italian cultural production in the 21st Century. Featured artists include well-known figures such as Chiara Camoni and Paola Pivi, but it’s good to see some younger, less-familiar names included too like the Kosovo-born archivist Petrit Halilaj and indie filmmaker Diego Macron. For more details about the publication - including a series of related in-person discussions - click here.
Netflix Italy has just announced a series of new releases due to hit the small screen in autumn winter 2023/24. While the streaming giant continues to cut budgets in North America and the English-speaking world, the Italian market is apparently still going strong, and there’s plenty of interesting-sounding stuff on the way. Il Treno dei Bambini, a film by Cristina Comencini, is a neorealist inspired journey through post-war Italy exploring the years of anxious rebuilding following the trauma of conflict. Fabbricante di Lacrime, by Alessandro Genovesi, is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Erin Doom, one of the best selling fantasy books of 2022. There are also some new series in the pipeline: Storia della mia Famiglia is a ramshackle comedy that seems to fit well into the tried and tested tradition of the Italian melodrama, while Adorazione by Stefano Mordini is a young adult series about the highs and lows of adolescent romance set during a sweltering Italian summer. Of all the new offerings, though, I’m most excited by the prospect of Nuova scena – Rhythm + Flow Italia, a freestyle rap contest hosted by Fabri Fibra (!), and Briganti, a 19th Century costume drama which follows the adventures of a young bandit forced to make ends meet in the chaotic years following Italian unification. Sign me up!
Recipe of the week: breaded porcini
The autumn rains are here, finally, and in Tuscany that means one thing: it’s porcini season! Porcini - otherwise known as ceps - are a wonderful thing. Fresh and thinly sliced, they’re perfect grilled with a simple topping of parsley and garlic. Dried and rehydrated, they make a great base for risottos, pastas and soups. Still, one of my favourite ways to celebrate this most iconic of mushrooms is to cut the whole body thickly, into cutlets, which are then breaded and fried (or baked) to make a kind of vegan cotoletta. You’ll find this dish sold as a contorno in most Tuscan trattorias. But I like to think of it as a main course in its own right. After all, porcini aren’t cheap. A kilo will set you back about 12-15 euros here, so you want to treat them as simply as possible without overwhelming the subtle earthy flavour. I use La Cucina Italiana’s standard recipe which also includes a zesty, lemon-herb mayonnaise. Served alongside a crisp autumn salad - a few rocket leaves, some garlic croutons, perhaps a little pear - this is my perfect midweek September dinner.
About Me
My name is Jamie Mackay (@JacMackay) and I’m an author, editor and translator based in Florence. I’ve been writing about Italy for a decade for international media including The Guardian, The Economist, Frieze, and Art Review. I launched ‘The Week in Italy’ to share a more direct and regular overview of the debates and dilemmas, innovations and crises that sometimes pass under the radar of our overcrowded news feeds.
If you enjoyed this newsletter I hope you’ll consider becoming a supporter for EUR 5.00 per month (the price of a weekly catch-up over an espresso). Alternatively, if you’d like to send a one-off something, you can do so via PayPal using this link. No worries if you can’t chip-in or don’t feel like doing so, but please do consider forwarding this to a friend or two. It’s a big help!